by Amelia Grey
“It is of great importance to the Prince and to England. I am not here talking to you about this as a lark, Miss Prim. The consequences of not marrying the duke by the stated date will create a very serious matter in England.”
Very serious?
A flicker of unease prickled over her. “And you’ve talked to the duke about this?” she asked. “And stressed to him that he needs to marry me?”
“A number of times. I can’t impress upon you enough that this is a matter of great concern to the Prince. If you do not marry the duke by the first day of June, there will be great embarrassment and scandal to England and the Prince.”
She knew dukes were powerful and that many things went on behind closed doors concerning political matters, but she whispered, “I don’t see how that could be.”
She could understand how it might embarrass the Prince if he had made some kind of wager about the outcome of their marriage, as many gentlemen in London had, but how could it possibly affect England?
Suddenly something more pressing entered Louisa’s mind. Now she knew why the duke had come to see her that night after their afternoon in the park. He didn’t want to comfort her. He wanted to seduce her. He knew she desired him. He may even know she loved him. And Bray assumed once he had taken her innocence, she would feel obligated to marry him.
A pain gripped her stomach. He was trying to force her to marry him because the Prince wanted him to marry her. Heartache filled her. She had hoped that just maybe he wanted to marry her because he had some tender feelings for her, but now she knew that wasn’t true.
“So Miss Prim, can the Prince depend on you to do what is right and ask the duke to fulfill his obligation to your brother and marry you with all haste?”
“As you know, Mr. Hopscotch,” Louisa said stiffly, “it is difficult to force the duke to do anything he doesn’t want to do, but you can depend on me to talk to him about this and get the matter settled as quickly as possible.”
This time, the man smiled as if quite pleased with himself, and he ran his hand down the ends of his neckcloth again. “The Prince will not forget your consideration, Miss Prim,” he said, nodded, and then walked away as quietly as he’d come upon her.
“Who was that?” Mrs. Colthrust asked, coming up to Louisa.
“He said his name was Mr. Alfred Hopscotch.”
“Why were you over here in the corner with him?”
“We were just talking about the Prince,” she said as anger at Bray grew inside her.
“I’ve never heard of Mr. Hopscotch. Is he related to a title?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
“Hmm, well, if you are interested, I can find out for you.”
“No, Mrs. Colthrust, I am most certainly not interested in Mr. Hopscotch.”
“Well, I might be,” she said, watching him walk away. “He’s not so dashing as some gentlemen, but he doesn’t have a bad look about him either. Did he happen to say whether or not he was married?”
“Of course not, and that was the furthest thing from my mind while we were talking,” Louisa said.
“Well, doesn’t matter right now anyway. I see he is already leaving. I’ll have to meet him another time, but I will make some inquiries about him. I’ve been looking for Gwen. Have you seen her recently?”
Louisa started scanning the ballroom. “No. The last time I saw her, she was dancing with Mr. Standish. That was several minutes ago.”
“Maybe she’s in the retiring room. I’ll check there and you look on the other side of the dance floor. Perhaps she’s standing in a corner by a large urn like you are.”
“Could we meet at the front door? I think I’m ready to go home.”
“I suppose we have been here long enough, but I don’t know how you and Gwen will ever find a husband if we continue to leave early each evening. Go, go. I’ll meet you at the front door.”
As soon as Louisa located Gwen, she was going to find Bray and let him know she now knew the truth of why he’d finally decided to comfort her.
A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. It was the door to the courtyard opening. Gwen walked inside. Louisa expected to see Mr. Standish come in right behind her, but Louisa’s feet halted and her stomach felt as if it fell to the floor. It was Bray who walked in after Gwen.
A soul-shattering pain ripped through Louisa.
Bray had been in the courtyard with her sister? A feeling of betrayal washed over her. Her hands curled into fists. Gwen turned back to Bray, and they spoke quietly before she hurried away. Louisa didn’t know which emotion she felt strongest—anger, jealousy, or hurt that Bray would dare try to woo her sister. She could forgive him for ignoring her for two years, for having no patience with the girls, even for keeping the Prince’s intentions from her, but she would not forgive him for pursuing her sister.
With single-minded purpose, she strode over to him, pinioned him with a glare, and in a frosty tone said, “How dare you take my sister out to the courtyard for a romantic interlude!”
Bray’s eyes narrowed and he folded his arms across his chest. “I thought we had established long ago that I will dare anything, Louisa.”
“But my sister!” she whispered earnestly. “I knew you were a scoundrel of the highest order, and you keep proving it to me day after day. I can understand you seducing me, thinking you would then be able to force me to marry you so you can do the Prince’s bidding. I was a more-than-willing victim, but seducing my sister is unforgivable.”
The courtyard door opened again, and they had to move out of the way to let the couple come inside.
“What did you say about the Prince?” he asked.
She knew they were attracting attention and noticed a couple of ladies were looking at them, but at this point she didn’t care who knew she was angry with the duke.
Keeping her voice low, she said, “Yes, I know there is a dirty little secret between you and the Prince. Mr. Hopscotch told me that you are trying to force me to marry you in order to save the Prince, or England, or both from some kind of scandal. I don’t care if Napoléon miraculously raises another army and threatens England once again. I will not marry you.”
“Good.”
She blinked. “Good?”
“Very good. Did he tell you why he is desperate for us to marry?”
“Only that it would cause a huge scandal for the Prince and England if we didn’t.”
“It will. Our Prince has wagered the Elgin Marbles.”
“What?”
“Yes, the dirty little secret is that the Prince wagered the Elgin Marbles to the Austrian archduke that we would marry by June one. Mr. Hopscotch came to see me within a week of you coming to London, Louisa. He has been to see me several times, always impressing upon me the need for us to marry.”
“I didn’t know what it was. He didn’t tell me.”
“Oh, that’s right, the Prince’s minion told me not to tell, but when have I ever done what I was told to do? When I suggested that you should ask me to marry you that night in your house, the Prince’s wager and what he’d asked me to do never crossed my mind! A man pays his own gambling debts. I have told this to Hopscotch repeatedly. As far as I am concerned, those damned stones will be just as well taken care of in a museum in Austria as in England. If the Prince loses them, maybe that will teach our glutton of a prince a lesson that he shouldn’t raid England’s treasury and antiquities on foolish wagers.”
Louisa was trying to make sense of his words about the Elgin Marbles, but Bray didn’t give her time to think. He kept talking.
“And as far as Gwen, Louisa, do you really think I would try to seduce your sister after I have made love to you?”
He looked so stricken that she said, “No, no.” And then, “I don’t know. What else am I to think except that you asked her to take a walk with you in the courtyard?”
“Maybe you could think that we were talking.” He stopped and let out a loud sigh. “If you want to
know more, you will have to ask Gwen because quite frankly, Louisa, I find this accusation beneath you and I find it tiresome.”
Beneath me? Tiresome?
“Let me tell you what is beneath me and tiresome, Your Grace. It’s waiting for two years to hear from a scoundrel and then when I finally do, it’s not an appropriate marriage proposal, it’s an order, a command that we will be married. So here is my answer: No, thank you!”
Her breath leaped in her throat, and before she knew what she was doing, she drew back her hand and struck him across the face with her open palm. The sound of the slap reverberated around the room.
His head snapped back and he blinked. “I bet that stung your hand,” he said dryly.
“No,” she said honestly. “It felt good.”
She turned to walk away and saw that everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing and was watching her and the duke. Even the music had stopped. No doubt those nearby had heard every word she said.
Louisa lifted her chin and her shoulders. Let them gawk, she thought. Let them banish her from the ton, write about her in the scandal sheets, or whatever they might do. She did not care and she was not sorry. The duke had had that slap coming for a long time.
Louisa realized that she actually felt better. In fact, she felt wonderful.
Without looking back at Bray, she started walking directly toward the crowd. To her surprise, clapping and cheering erupted from everyone. The people parted and allowed her to walk through. She heard shouts of “Well done, Miss Prim, and it’s about time you showed him what you’re made of!” and “You got what you deserved, Your Grace!”
Louisa paid them no mind. She kept walking and met no one’s eyes. She would wait outside for Mrs. Colthrust and Gwen.
* * *
Bray worked his jaw. She had strength in her lovely arms and a sting in her soft hands. She had caught him by surprise, but she was right and he knew it. He’d deserved the slap a long time ago. He just never thought she’d do it.
“I think the crowd is thinking it’s about time she let you have it square in the face,” Harrison said as he walked up beside Bray.
“And they are right,” Seaton added, walking around to the other side of Bray.
“Do you know what else they’re thinking?” Harrison asked.
Bray nodded as the crowd swallowed Louisa from his view. “That I should stalk after her, force her into my arms, and kiss her right here in front of everyone in the ton, and horrify all the dowagers, spinsters, and innocents, and stake my claim on her once and for all.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you kissed a lady in public,” Harrison offered.
Seaton said, “Please, Harrison, you can’t equate Miss Prim with Bray’s mistresses when he was a mere boy of twenty-one. That was years ago, when he was still trying to shock his father. Besides, it was on a street where only two gentlemen saw it and then told about it. There are over a hundred people here tonight.”
Harrison looked at Bray. “A kiss right now would surely please a gossip-hungry crowd who’s begging for a better ending to the night than a well-deserved slap.”
“But you’re not going after her, are you?” Seaton added.
“No,” Bray said. “Let’s go get a drink.”
Chapter 26
There is no fettering of authority.
—All’s Well that Ends Well, act 2, scene 3
Bray never expected to find himself waiting for Louisa in her drawing room the day after she slapped him, but she’d given him no choice. She might be right in thinking she was too prim and proper for his rakish ways, but if she thought she could best him in any tug-of-war, she was in for a huge disappointment.
And he was just itching to give it to her.
“Your Grace,” Louisa said, walking slowly into the room and clearly staying on the other side of the settee.
He didn’t know why, but it angered him that she didn’t come fully into the room to confront him but was keeping her distance as if she feared getting too close to him. Or maybe she thought she should stay near the doorway in case she had to quickly escape from him. “This is a surprise,” she said.
Why did she have to look so damn fetching? Why did she have to have her hair falling across her shoulders just the way he liked it? And why did she have to look so frightened? Did she think he might seek retribution for the slap?
He cleared his head of those troubling thoughts and tried to remember the reason he was there. “I bet it is.”
“Well, you are an admitted gambler so I’m sure ‘bet’ is an appropriate word for you to use. I suppose today you came to give me a lesson in sarcasm.”
He noticed that she didn’t meet his eyes when she talked. “Not sarcasm—but, yes, I think a lesson is in order.”
“Well, you will be happy to know I need no further lessons from you. You have shown me all you have to offer. And if you came to see Gwen, I’m afraid you’ve missed her. She and Mrs. Colthrust are at Mrs. Roland’s card party this afternoon and unavailable.”
If she wouldn’t come to him, he would go to her. He walked menacingly around the settee and stood in front of her, near the entrance to the room. His admiration inched up a notch when she stood firm and let him approach without fleeing.
“You know I didn’t come to see Gwen. And I’m not even close to having shown you all I have up my sleeves, but I will. I heard a few minutes ago that you have been to the Court of Chancery to see if you could have me removed as your and your sisters’ guardian.”
“You only heard today?” she asked. “I did that a couple of weeks ago. I can’t believe it took so long for you to find out.”
“Your petition finally made its way up to the Lord Chancellor, and he told me as soon as it was made known to him.”
“You look unsettled by this.”
“Maybe that’s because I am,” he said tightly, thinking what he really wanted to do was wrap her in his arms and kiss her, tell she would never be free of him, and not let her go until she begged him to marry her.
“Why? I told you the first day we met that I was going to Chancery Court to see about having our guardian changed to someone more appropriate for us.”
“You said a lot of things that first afternoon we met, Miss Prim, but I thought you were more intelligent than to actually go through with something like this.”
He watched her bristle. “I have to think about my sisters’ welfare. I needed to know what all my options are so I could make informed decisions as to what is best for them.”
“Options?” He ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t understand your relentless sense that you are responsible for your sisters’ well-being. You are not. I am.”
She stepped toward him. “I beg your pardon. In the past seven years, they have lost their parents and their brother. I’m all they have, and I will take care of them the best I can, and if that includes changing to a new guardian, I will see that it is done.”
“Are you implying I have not been taking adequate care of you and your sisters?”
“Not so far as the things they need.”
“Have any of my wild and reckless ways that you’re always so concerned about ever hurt or damaged any of you? Have I ever hurt them or frightened them?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why in the hell did you go?”
“Because I’ve known from the start you were not capable of being our guardian. You cringe every time you are around Bonnie and Sybil. You roughly handled Lillian when you took her out of the carriage. You seduced me one week, and the next week you are in the courtyard with Gwen, proving to me that I was not wrong to seek help to get away from you.”
“I admit I cringe at those high-pitched sounds, and I did forcibly take Lillian from the carriage, but I never hurt her. I would not hurt any of your sisters. I am not pursuing Gwen, and she is not interested in me.”
“So now you call her Gwen. Not Miss Gwen.”
“A brother doesn’t call his sist
er Miss.”
A ripple of surprise threaded through Louisa.
“Are you two arguing?”
Bray and Louisa jerked around and saw Bonnie standing in the doorway.
“No,” Bray said. “It probably sounded that way, but no, we were just having a discussion, isn’t that right, Miss Prim?”
She hesitated, and he knew Miss Prim and Proper was debating whether she ought to lie to her little sister and agree that they weren’t arguing.
She passed on the lie by saying, “Tell me what you want?”
Bonnie walked into the room and past Louisa without answering. She looked up at Bray and said, “I have something for you.”
“You have something?” He looked at her hands. They were empty. He looked at Louisa, and she lightly shook her head.
Bonnie gave Bray a big toothless grin. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back, Your Grace, so I could give it to you. I made it for you all by myself.”
She walked over to the secretary and opened a drawer. She pulled out a small piece of canvas and walked over and handed it to him. He took it from her and looked down at it. It was a child’s painting. There were trees, flowers, and a big yellow sun in a blue sky. There was a carriage overcrowded with people in the center, and off to the side was a booth with puppets hanging in it. It took him a moment to realize she had painted a picture of their day in the park for him. His chest and throat constricted.
“It was the best day I’ve ever had,” Bonnie told him.
He looked down at Bonnie’s smiling face, and it dawned on him that he’d never been given a gift. He didn’t know what to do. All his life, his father had given him anything he wanted. His mother, too, but neither of them had ever given him a gift. He had showered gifts of jewelry on his mistresses, gifts of money on doxies, and gifts of flowers and sweets on proper young ladies for years, but no one had ever given anything to him. He was a marquis the day he was born. Who needed to give him a gift?
“I don’t know what to say.”
“How about thank you,” Louisa said from between clenched teeth.